Cwedolscead
by Dollar Short
Summary: The Yellow Eyed Demon muses on life, his cunning plans and enjoys a nice hot cup of coffee. Early Season 1 or even preseries.


**Cwedolscead**

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_Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nada, zilch, zip, zero. All yours Kripke._

_A/N: I wrote the bulk of this before the YED's identity was revealed. Written mainly for my own amusement as I pondered on the demon's origins and his plans or lack thereof. It certainly doesn't reflect canon. AU? Natch, possibly rather silly._

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His name was Cwedolscead. He had not chosen the name and he was not aware of who it might have been who gave him the name. But he cursed them to the rankest, most festering depths of hell, which no doubt, was where they resided anyway. The name was not assigned at his birth, when the first haze of his dark nascent energy belched forth from the blackest hearts of humanity, but came later, the word spewing unbidden from the nadir of damnation, floating on the stench of brimstone to swaddle itself around him, as his disparate strands coalesced into a conscious, if formless being.

Or something like that.

He tapped absently at his coffee cup.

Once long ago, when all men had lived and died in the fearful shadow of their Gods, his name had had power, resonance, a certain zing. Of course, there had been others more powerful; he thought irritably, names whose guttural syllables caused breath to seize in the fragile chests of men, eyes to roll heavenward in fevered supplication of a favored savior.

He ripped savagely at the prepackaged sugar and dumped it into his coffee. Well, he'd shown them. He had proved himself more enduring, more cunning, outlasting the other guys. Most of them, anyway.

It was a damn shame, really, these technological, material seeking, comfort laden bodies of dust and earth that trundled around before him. They wouldn't even recognize a portent of evil if it got up and bit them in the ass and believe it, he'd tried. Okay, he stirred his coffee, there were some who saw behind the illusion of reality, catching a glimpse of the teeming whirlwind of existence beyond the human veil, whether by an inherent talent or by sheer bloody mindedness. He smirked into his coffee. John Winchester should have known better that to hunt the evil he thought he saw lurking behind every tree, proverbial or otherwise, when he carried with him a heart full of such blind hatred. As always, it was the souls of the innocents that suffered. Eventually as tarnished as that of their father. Well, they would be if he had anything to do with it.

Kids, who'd have 'em? He sighed and leered at the mousy waitress who paused at his table to refill his cup. Her drab outward appearance belying the delightfully twisted and varied fantasies that saturated her conscious mind. He thought briefly about entertaining her in her mundane deviancy but he was starting to get a headache. Where was he? Oh, yes, kids. His were out there, somewhere, faithfully doing his bidding. They were born not long after he had arrived in the new world, eager to exploit the endless possibilities of the harsh existence of naive immigrants. He had been terribly disappointed to find that the original inhabitants of the land were impervious to his talents. He could not mark them, most annoying as many were born with such talented minds, possess, or unduly influence them in any way, although that had changed as many had lost their connection to the earth. He had left them to the devices of their own demons and concentrated on his own people. Meddling in the minds of men. Nothing big, sure he had started or couple of wars, back in the day and been rewarded with his offspring. Fecund evil conceived, as he was, in weak and malleable minds and born forth to be baptized in the blood shed by the battle of mortal hands. Excellent stuff.

At first, they were no more that barely felt whispers of evil, drifting through the hurly burly of human existence, latching onto the unkind breast of the ever uncaring, thriving, gathering their own consciousness to them until they too could claim a name of their own.

He snorted as he pulled open a carton of coffee creamer, it seemed that the flames of hell had run short of the poetry of the past and fallen in line with the prosaic aspirations of the unwashed human masses. Where were the names of old, ancient words that held more magic that the empty vanity of their modern counterparts? His daughter had never claimed her true name, choosing instead to wear the insipid names of her human hosts. He shook his head, no pride in her heritage, that one, too willful. He poured the creamer into his coffee, stirring it vigorously and licked the spoon clean with long swipes of his tongue. The old lady across the aisle stared disapprovingly at him. He winked at her, pulling the spoon from his mouth with an obscenely wet pop.

People were just so easy.

In the last hundred years or so he developed a habit, generally he avoided anything that smacked of order or symmetry, it reminded him too much of the other side. Chaos was more his style, still it sometimes helped to have a plan, every couple of decades or so, sometimes it was longer, he'd never been a stickler for punctuality, he would sniff out a few interesting prospects. Human sucklings with that tantalizing tingle of true second sight. And he would mark them; brand them with the blood of his corporeal form, something he had only been able to achieve after many frustrating centuries. Solid bodies didn't come cheap; it required energy to achieve mass, lots of it. So he didn't do it very often, hosts were easier to come by, cheap, off the peg, easy to maintain and ultimately disposable.

He took a gulp of coffee, hot and strong. The human experience did have certain advantages, taste buds for one.

Ah, humans. So he would single out a few investment opportunities so to speak, line up his future employees. Strategic planning, sound business sense or so he understood. Sometimes he landed a choice catch, like little Elspeth with her golden curls and sparkling blue eyes. She, who due to an accident of birth and an unfortunate natural quirk in her brain chemistry, not that they understood such things in those days, had been born rotten to the core and had eagerly availed herself to him at the tender age of 11. Serving him for a long and gloriously corrupt life. He missed her now and then and even amused himself with a little guilt, but she would have been sucked into Hades without his help, anyway.

He sighed, taking another gulp of coffee, sucking it across the roof of his mouth and swirling it around his tongue, more cream perhaps? Perhaps they had some of those flavored ones, Irish Cream was good.

Of course, not all his children came so easily to him; it was a sad fact that they often needed an encouraging shove in the right direction. Immolating mommy was always a good start. Sometimes he'd run over their cat, all in the name of progress, mind you and if he was feeling particularly dastardly he'd dog their footsteps, popping up at crucial interludes in their lives to wreak havoc.

Very occasionally, he would forget about one or two children and they would live out their lives untouched by his twisted hand. Although, he reflected, waving his now empty cup at the waitress two tables down, once marked, forever changed. Prescient dreams, vivid nightmares, and a tendency to spend their whole lives procrastinating were the telltale signs of his little baptism ritual. He shrugged. Life's a bitch and then they died. Whatever.

He didn't usually try to harvest his crop until they had reached adulthood; there were exceptions, his darling Elspeth for one. There were those that attracted him from the start, others where he merely went through the motions and then there were those whose minds sang out clear and loud, a delightful refrain against the drab workings of their humdrum counterparts. Samuel Winchester was one such child. The seeds he'd sown a couple of decades ago were bearing remarkable fruit. For the first time in almost a century, he was spoilt for choice. He rubbed his hands together, the anticipation was remarkably satisfying.

Another cup of coffee. Existence was good.


End file.
